Gaming Laptop vs. Console

When it comes to gaming, the competition between gaming laptops, PCs, and consoles has been fierce for a long time.

Although the PC still has the advantage because of its customizability, laptops and consoles aren’t far behind. Recently, popular consoles and gaming laptops have taken the gaming market by storm.

Since the PC is already the best gaming device, let’s take a step back and look at how gaming laptops and consoles stack up against each other.

This is going to be a tough comparison, and in this article of the ultimate showdown, only the real winner will sit next to PC.

Getting to Know Gaming Laptops

Gaming laptops are ready-made gaming devices that can give you the best gaming experience of a PC anywhere.

The only downside of a gaming laptop is that the space on its hard-wired CPU is only for an additional RAM slot. Some gaming laptops have thunderbolt ports, but it’s not a standard feature.

When you think of gaming laptops, you might think of brands like Lenovo Legion, Razer, Asus ROG, Dell Alienware, and many more. At the moment, these laptop brands are the best for gaming, and they cost as much as you’d expect.

Getting to Know Consoles

Consoles aren’t just for casual gamers; they can also be used for online competitive or co-op gaming. Consoles are made in such a way that they can run a decade of games with high-quality graphics and no frame drops. Some consoles require you to set up a monitor or TV, but they are worth the trouble.

The current generation is more interested in consoles than PCs because consoles are ready-made and cheap. The gaming industry is dominated by console brands like Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Wii, and a few handheld consoles. Every 3–5 years, they come out with a new version of their consoles.

Comparison Between Gaming Laptops & Consoles

It would be like walking on thin ice to compare the newest gaming laptops, like the Lenovo Legion 5, to the newest consoles, like the PS5. We’ll compare everything you can expect from these devices, including what they have in common and what they don’t have at all. This will help you decide which one is best. So, you can also pick your winner.

1. FPS (Frames Per Second)

Gaming Laptops

Depending on the requirements of the game, these devices have no trouble giving you 60–120fps. When your laptop gets too hot to the point where it will crash, your fps will drop. On a normal day, you can change the game’s frame rate (fps) and adjust the other display settings to get the best results.

Consoles

The fps rate on consoles is set and can’t be changed by the user. But newer consoles can go up to 120 frames per second and give you the best gaming experience. Old consoles could only run games smoothly at 30fps, but newer consoles can run games at any fps the user wants.

2. Upgrades

Gaming Laptops

A laptop gives up a lot to become a lightweight portable PC. One of these features is to upgrade the CPU parts. As an upgrade, a gaming laptop’s mobile CPU can only be made better by adding RAM to slots and upgrading the storage that is already there. Everything else is tightly sealed and wired, so there isn’t any extra space or room to make changes.

Consoles

The few upgrades that can be made to a gaming laptop can’t even be made to a console. You can change your TV or monitor and buy new consoles, but those aren’t internal upgrades and don’t change the overall gaming experience. When you think about buying a console, you should keep these things in mind.

3. In-game Setup

Gaming Laptops

Laptops have a keyboard and a touch pad so you can play games using them. The great thing about this setup is that the game lets you map any key to any button you want. Using a gaming laptop, you can also change the game’s whole display, graphics, and control settings.

Consoles

Many gamers think console gamers are lazy and not gamers at all because they have no control over how the game is set up. Since everyone with the same console will eventually use the same settings, the settings for all console games are optimized from the start. You could say it’s an easy solution.

4. Additional Input

Gaming Laptops

You can always play games with the keyboard and touchpad that came with it, or you can change things up. Adding more inputs to a laptop for gaming is not necessary. Still, you can improve your gaming by adding an extra mouse, keyboard, controller, gamepad, etc.

Consoles

The games you want to play on most consoles can only be seen on a monitor or TV screen. Not only that, but you also have to buy controllers that work with that console. These are more important upgrades that can’t be skipped. Unless your console is portable, you’ll need to buy these extra things.

5. Gaming Protection

Gaming Laptops

A gaming laptop’s battery will always have a very short life. If the power goes out, you can still play games for 1-2 hours. This means you don’t need any extra tools to make sure your game doesn’t just disappear. Also, gaming laptops have a mode called “game mode” that gives you the best gaming experience.

Consoles

Consoles don’t have any way to keep going when the power goes out, so your game will end as soon as the power goes out. This means that your game won’t save, and all the time you spent playing was wasted. So, people who play video games on consoles need to buy a UPS device and connect it to the console and TV for extra safety.

Since consoles are only made for playing games, they give you the best gaming experience.

6. Mods

Gaming Laptops

Gaming laptops are the same as gaming desktops, except that they heat up faster and last less long on a single charge. So, there’s no question that you can add mods to your games and improve how they work. Mods won’t stop you from playing offline games unless you’re playing an online game.

Consoles

There are different “mods” for different consoles, which are called “console commands,” but all of these mods affect the current console gaming. Since many online gamers try to cheat by using mods, console gamers are safe as long as they don’t rig the game or jailbreak the console.

7. Price and durability

Gaming Laptops

Gaming laptops are some of the most expensive laptops on the market. Some of them are overhyped and overpriced, which really irritates some gamers. Again, gaming laptops have a bad name for only lasting 3–4 years at most. This isn’t a problem for someone who plays games all the time, because those 3–4 years will be their best gaming memories.

Consoles

It might seem like a console costs more to set up than a gaming laptop, but that’s not the case. Even if you buy extra controllers, a monitor, and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) along with the console, it won’t cost as much as a gaming laptop. To make things even better, consoles can last between 6 and 10 years, depending on how well the user takes care of them.

Final Verdict

Both gaming devices have things that people like and things that bother them. If you asked me what I think, I’d say consoles are better than gaming laptops because they don’t lose frames per second and last longer.

Once you’ve set up your console and paid a fair amount of money, you won’t have to pay anything else for 5 or 6 years.

This doesn’t mean that gaming laptops aren’t good, but my main goal is to spend less to get more and get a gaming device that’s already set up. This isn’t true for everyone, since some people like to control everything about their games or use mods.

Overall, both devices are the best for you if you want to have fun playing games.